Coming of Age
by RT Fice
Summary: Beetlejuice impatiently waits for Lydia's return from a tour of Sarah Lawrence College with her parents. When she finally arrives, she's not the same. Beej is jolted into discovering how she's changed, and how - or if - he still has a place in her new life.
1. Chapter 1

**Note:**

This is the first story of a 5 story series. They're set in the Cartoonverse, but I did lift a few, small elements from the movie, and applied my own spin to them. While it's Humor/Romance, I've rated it for Teens and Up, for sexual situations in Chapter 3. I've restrained my descriptive words, but what occurs is explicit.

Chapter 1 includes my own take on the Neitherworld, with brief parodies of religion and philosophy, which you may or may not find offensive or boring as hell. If you want to get straight to the Ship, skip to Chapter 2 (but give Chapter 1 a try!).

You can read the rest of my work at _Archive of Our Own_ , including an alternate, explicit ending for _Coming of Age._ The link is in my Profile.

* * *

"Where th' heck is she? She _said_ she'd be home this morning!"

Beetlejuice pressed his pointed nose against his side of Lydia's mirror. Her bed was still made, and the skeleton curtains were still shut, with the Spring afternoon sunlight trickling in around the edges.

The ghost whapped his right palm against the oval window. Of course, the portal between his world and that of the Living remained indifferently sealed.

"Dammit! Limitations! Ya know I hate 'em!" Beetlejuice turned away from the portal, fuming.

The first several decades of his Afterlife had been, literally, a scream. Especially for those he'd haunted. With elation, Beetlejuice discovered very shortly after he staggered into the Waiting Room in confused consciousness that he could do practically anything and everything with his new "magic," or whatever the hell it actually was. The first sign was when, his head pounding with pain and disorientation, Beetlejuice snarled at the victim of an avalanche, who was whistling shrilly (which was the cause of death, a fellow non-survivor complained). No sooner had Beetlejuice said, " _Clam up already!",_ then there was a blast of light, and the mountain climber turned into a large, silent clam.

Everyone else in the Waiting Room scooted several seats away from the newcomer.

"Why can I do this?" Beetlejuice had asked Juno, during his first, and only, interview with the Afterlife Caseworker. He pointed at her office file cabinet. A jagged laser of light flew from his fingertip to the cabinet, and in a second the cabinet's drawers became toothed jaws, masticating centuries of paperwork. "I couldn't do that when I was alive. _You_ can't do that. It's seriously freaky, know whut I mean?"

Juno's reply was to boot him out of her office and tell him to never, ever, _ever_ come back.

Since then, Beetlejuice's powers seemed limited only by his imagination, which was endless. And limited by the threat of being eaten by Sandworms; or, more precisely, the fear of what did or did not happen after being eaten. And by the inability to come and go to the world of the living as he pleased.

But even the thrill of his "magic," of being the Ghost With the Most, dulled with time. The worst part of death was the boredom. The Neitherworld was a stuffy, bureaucratic society that didn't change. The new arrivals were as banal, monotonous, and cautious as they had been in life. There was no one in the Neitherworld who shared Beetlejuice's particular taste in humor, no one whose brain was as actively imaginative as his.

Then Lydia Deetz moved into the renovated Victorian mansion, high on a hill overlooking the Winter River in Peaceful Pines, Connecticut. It was the mansion the townsfolk whispered to be haunted by a malicious poltergeist of unknown origin.

But Lydia wasn't around _now_. Beetlejuice shoved his fists in his pockets and stomped out of his room.

Ginger the Tap-Dancing Spider and Jacques LaLean the skeleton were sitting on the couch in the Roadhouse's Common Room, watching an old Fred Astaire musical. They were admiring the dancers' talents when Beetlejuice entered. The ghost sighed dramatically and fell backward. A fly-strewn Dumpster suddenly materialized, and he collapsed into it.

"Are you still down in the dumps, mon frère?" asked Jacques, a tint of impatience in his tone.

"I thought Lydia was gonna be home today," said Ginger, in her Brooklyn accent.

"So did I." A long, striped green tongue shot out from the trash, snagged a screaming fly, and retracted. A belch followed.

"I bet she's having all kinds ah fun!" said Ginger. "Decorating' her dorm room! Lookin' 'round the campus! Findin' the college canteen!"

"Oui!" said Jacques, enthusiastically. "We are so proud of our Lydia!"

" _Our_ Lydia?" Beetlejuice's head poked out of the garbage, aiming his narrowed eyes at the skeleton.

"Oui, ours. We have all the three of us seen her grow up, Beetlejuice."

"Grow up? What're ya talkin' about?"

Being French, Jacques said, with gentle realization, "Ah."

"Well, yeah, ya idiot." Ginger eyed the fog of flies around Beetlejuice's head. "You can't tell me you haven't noticed—"

"Ginger," said Jacques, softly. The large spider glanced at him. He shook his head and put a finger to where his lips used to be, to indicate discretion.

Ginger's expression transitioned from puzzlement to surprised understanding. "Oh. He _doesn't_ … Oh, dear."

"So Lyds is checking out some university." The ghost crossed his arms over his chest, glaring resentfully at the couple in elegant clothes sweeping in black and white on the television screen. "That's no excuse for neglectin' her best friend."

"You are happy for her that she will be going to university, are you not?" asked Jacques, his impatience replaced with concern.

Beetlejuice's yellow eyes flared with offence. "Who was it that was up all night grillin' her for her SAT, PSAT, an' all that? Who made sure she got enough sleep, an' ate breakfast, an' got those applications an' essays mailed out before th' deadlines?"

"When he wasn't tryin' to get her to party an' prank with him," said Ginger, rolling her eyes.

"Hey. All work an' no play, etcetera."

The ghost sank back into the trash. Ginger and Jacques returned their attention to the screen, as Astaire sang "They Can't Take That Away From Me."

"A month!" Beetlejuice blurted, his voice resonating in the metal box, startling the spider and the skeleton. "She's been gone a whole _month!_ I could take it if Chicken-Livered Chuckie and Delia Ditz were around to torment, but they went with her! _I'm bored out of my mind!"_

There was a loud pop. A brain hopped out of the Dumpster and tried to make a break for it across the floor.

"Come back here, you!" Beetlejuice's arm reached out from the trash, grabbed the fleeing brain, and disappeared with it back into the dark. "Though I dunno why I'm bothering. Not like _you've_ ever done me any good."

Ginger and Jacques sighed simultaneously. Ginger pressed the PAUSE button on the remote control.

"What about haunting?" the spider asked, hopeful. "Scaring th' pants off folks always cheers ya up."

"Everyone in this backward 'burg is used to -," two hands rose from the Dumpster, and their red-tipped fingers mimed quotation marks in the air, "'- unexplained phenomena.' They don't see or hear me anymore. Nobody new ever comes, 'cept a few tourists who get lost on the way to someplace with _personality_. An' _they're_ too stupid t' frighten." His voice took on a Southern accent. "'Oh look, the car blew up and there's a cackling head of fire looming above the gas station with writhing snakes fer hair. Ain't that something. Well, let's go to the motel and watch 'Saw VI.'"

"To speak of the cinema," said Jacques, pointing at the TV, "this you may enjoy, if you were to quiet down and see."

"Or," Beetlejuice ranted, "they're _Intellectuals_ , come to do gravestone rubbings." His voice curdled, cultured and snotty. "'Yes, dear, I do see the rotting corpse hauling itself out of that mausoleum. But of course that is simply an effect of the milieu of 18th century New England cemeteries we have subconsciously absorbed from the Literature course we took at Harvard in which we deconstructed Hawthorne and Poe.'"

"Wow. I never thought you thought about it that much," said Ginger, impressed.

"An' I'm _stuck_ here!" Beetlejuice sat up, a blackened banana peel across his chest and coffee grounds in his hair. " _They_ won't let me outta Peaceful Pines!"

" _They_ would not have restricted you," said Jacques, firmly, "if you exercised the restraint. Blowing up automobiles, appearing as corpses, these are too far, and you know it. You cannot be allowed to bring attention to the Afterlife. To scare, oui, this is acceptable. But to cause harm and damage which can be measured, mais non, she is against the rules."

"We're _dead_!" snapped Beetlejuice. "Why th' hell do we have _rules?_ "

"Look," said Ginger, the last of her patience evaporating, "Lydia'll call ya when she wants ta see ya, 'kay already? We're tryin' to watch the flick here!" She hit PLAY, and the movie resumed.

Beetlejuice scowled at the tall, skinny man with big ears as he expertly dipped the tall, skinny woman with blond hair, and tried to feel entertained. It didn't work. His yellow eyes fixed on the spider and her soppy grin.

"Ginge'," said Beetlejuice. "Don't think I ever mentioned it, but there're no spiders even remotely as huge an' ugly as you in th' Real World. Do you remember bein' alive? Where're ya _from_?"

Both Ginger and Jacques stared, incredulous, at the ghost. Jacques' jaw dropped, literally, into what had once been his lap. Ginger let out a shriek, which was immediately followed by an explosion of tears.

"Sheesh," said Beetlejuice. "Guess you're from Overly Sensitive World."

Ginger ran off the couch, up the wall, and to her room in the Roadhouse's ceiling. She slammed the corrugated tin door behind her.

Jacques slapped his jaw back into place. "You know better than to ask about _Before_!" he shouted, standing up and balling his finger bones into fists.

With a snap of his fingers, Beetlejuice made the Dumpster disappear. "Cripes, Jacques. Ya know better than t' know that _I_ know better 'bout _anything_. Know whut I mean?"

" _Mean_ is what _you_ are being! It is _you_ who should be doing the growing up! Take out your frustration elsewhere!"

"Hey, pal, this is _my_ Roadhouse! You just rent here! Nobody tells _me_ where t' go!"

"Oo la la," said the skeleton sarcastically. "Excepting Juno and _Them_ , non? You go too far, the leash, she is yanked. Ha!"

"The Ghost With the Most is on _nobody's_ leash!" Steam screamed from Beetlejuice's ears. His teeth sharpened to points. "I go _where_ I want, _when_ I want!" His voice darkened, turning female and hoarse; Juno's voice. "'Geographical and Temporal Perimeters; Functional perimeters vary from manifestation to manifestation, '" his voice returned to its normal, dry sarcasm, "my fat, dead ass! I'm goin' t' find Lydia!"

He vanished with a thunderclap.

The sky above Peaceful Pines darkened as roiling clouds formed with alarming speed. A lightning bolt shot down into the small, ancient cemetery. Had anyone in the town with an open mind been watching, they would have seen a mist coagulate into a foggy shape beside the rusty, leaning iron fence which enclosed the place of the dead.

With wind lashing his yellow hair, Beetlejuice glared at the sign by the fork in the road a few yards from the cemetery's fence, which declared _You Are Now Leaving Peaceful Pines. Come Again Soon!_

One road went North to New York State, where the Deetzs had gone. The other went South, through Connecticut, and to the ocean. His sharp teeth clenched, Beetlejuice hauled first one leg, then the other, over the rickety iron bars. Immediately he felt a shift, as if the world had moved backwards a few inches beneath his pointed boots. With determination, he stormed down the small hill and straight for the sign.

"HA!" he barked, slapping the sign with contemptuous triumph as he passed it. "So much for 'perimeters!'"

The moment his heels hit the road, the earth yawned beneath them.

Twisting as he fell, Beetlejuice sank his fingers into the rim between the worlds.

"OH, _crap_!" Above, through the portal, Beetlejuice saw the storm clouds writhing. He didn't dare look below. He kicked, hanging hundreds of feet in the air, and frantically tried to lift his own body weight with his arms. As always, his fear short-circuited his magic. Levitation was impossible; so was shape-shifting. He may as well have been a helpless, limited, living human again.

A roar, like a giant, rusted metal gate creaking open, echoed far away.

"They must have th' best sense of smell in th' universe!" Beetlejuice yelled in the howling wind. A clod of earth broke from between his fingers, but as it fell into the portal, it disappeared.

"C'mon, 'Juice! _C'mon_!" He heard something enormous –no, more than one—shifting far below with the ease of sharks turning in waves. One hand grappled and dug a few inches higher into the Real World. Like an idiot, he looked down.

Windblown yellow sand almost obscured two moons, a greater and a lesser, pale and low in the dark blue sky. He hung in the midst of that sky. Gigantic, striped fins sliced through the wheat-colored dunes of Herbert World, heading in Beetlejuice's direction.

"AA!" With strength from sheer panic alone, Beetlejuice yanked out a hand and dug it like a mountaineer's claw hammer six inches further up.

Metallic screeching indicated that the creatures had spotted him dangling in the air.

Shrieking himself, Beetlejuice scrambled and pulled and kicked. His arms, his head and his chest were out when he felt a concussion of air from great jaws snapping below his feet.

"I am _not_ gonna die _again!_ " screamed Beetlejuice, clawing furrows into the grass beside the road. "The first time was bad enough! I am not gonna be digested! _I don't know if there's another side_!"

Something brushed his left boot, and hot, dry breath heated his ankle. With terror, Beetlejuice grabbed handfuls of long grass and yanked himself free from the portal. It immediately slammed shut.

Huffing, Beetlejuice turned over and stared at the quiet, whole asphalt road, and the amiable sign _You Are Now Leaving Peaceful Pines. Come Again Soon!_

"OK," he moaned, "I wasn't _that_ bored." He gulped. "I need a drink."

The Downtown of New Yuck City, a few miles from Beetlejuice's Roadhouse, was probably a twisted version of the Real World's New York City. The ghost didn't know; he'd never been to New York, in life or death, but he'd seen photographs of where Lydia used to live. Why the dead insisted on trying to replicate the Living World escaped him, because it was impossible to make it feel as it had when they were alive. The residents of the Neitherworld couldn't help but put a darkly cynical spin on things, because of their natural fascination with the grotesque and the frightful. It was similar to the way recovering addicts shared dark jokes amongst themselves, which sober people didn't, and couldn't, understand. "You had to be there" had extra meaning for the dead. When you've had huge chunks ripped from your body because your son hit ENGAGE on your speedboat's Evinrude, after you'd repeatedly told him to never touch that button goddammit I mean it, you couldn't help but have a skewed sense of the ridiculous.

But there was a longing for What Had Been, even though, once you were out of the Waiting Room, out of your Caseworker's office, and through the door to the Neitherworld, you didn't breathe a word about Before. No one wanted a Flashback. Some who had them went too far, and didn't come back. Ghosts who haunted in the Real World didn't mix with those who had Crossed Over permanently. That was a Rule that Beetlejuice, and Beetlejuice alone, broke.

"Repent!" cried a voice on the street corner.

 _And then_ , mused Beetlejuice with irritation as he floated down the sidewalk, _there are those morons who just won't goddamn let it go._

Beetlejuice stopped and sized up the two dozen newcomers grouped on the corner. He loved playing _How Did They Croak?_

"Gashed clothes," he mumbled as he assessed the damages, "lacerated flesh…glass an' splinters piercing all over their bodies…limbs missing…" Beetlejuice snapped his fingers confidently. "Tornado!"

"Repent!" bellowed the tallest man, who had a nine iron speared through his chest, and thin, mousy brown hair sticking out at all angles. He clutched a Bible that was shorn of its back cover and half its pages. His group, which were trying to cover the most immodest areas of their bodies with the few scraps of clothes they still had, obediently echoed, "Repent!"

Beetlejuice strolled up to the tall man. "Repent what?"

"The Kingdom of God is at hand!" hollered the man, not looking directly at Beetlejuice, or any of the many pedestrians, human and otherwise, who were indifferently walking by.

"You're dead," said Beetlejuice.

"Those who have Walked with the Lamb have Eternal Life. We are being tried and tested. The Might of Our Lord plucked us from the midst of our prayer meeting, to bring His message to—"

"Dorothy," said Beetlejuice, "yer not in Kansas anymore. An' this ain't Oz."

"We're from _Oklahoma_ , not Kansas," said a hefty woman, whose ineffective girdle showed through her shredded dress. Her hair looked as if the tornado had yanked it straight up in a tribute to the Bride of Frankenstein's Monster. She patted the ghost's arm. "It's an easy mistake, dear. Goodness, you're cold. You need a sweater. And a haircut."

Beetlejuice observed, "It's th' atheists an' Buddhists who adapt th' quickest. Th' Rastafarians don't notice any difference."

"Only a personal Relationship with Jesus will save you from this realm of Damnation," the tall man went on. "You, sir!" He jabbed Beetlejuice in the chest. "Do you have a personal relationship with Our Savior?"

"Sure thing, Sparky," said the ghost. "We were having decaf chamomile an' bars this morning, an' he told me to tell ya that YOU'RE _**DEAD**_!"

"Is this Hell?" asked a teenage boy timidly, his right arm dangling from one or two ligaments.

"Only if yer definition of Hell is no diseases, being able to eat whatever ya want, drink as much as ya want, have as much sex as ya want, an' no consequences," said Beetlejuice.

"Hallelujah!" yelled the boy, joyfully.

"Son, do not give in to temptation!" yelled the tall man, whose nine iron punched the hefty woman in the eye as he turned. "This is merely a Way Station on our journey to His Great and Glorious Mansion, where care and woe are forgotten—"

"Oh, christ. So to speak." Beetlejuice walked toward an alley. "Time to do unto others, as…" He paused. "I forget th' rest."

The newcomers were still verbally accosting passersby when a huge shadow fell across them. They went silent and looked up.

The sun –which for some reason didn't look like the sun back in Oklahoma—was blotted out by a head of long, flowing hair on a bearded man fifty feet high. His robe was made of simple cloth; his feet were shod in sandals. The only things which were unrecognizable were his thick, blood-red toenails and yellow eyes.

"AND THUSLY YOU HAVE PROVEN YOUR WORTH." The huge man's voice reverberated against them.

The group fell to their knees, bowed their heads, and clasped their hands in prayer, if it was at all possible.

Pedestrians cut across the street as if such a scene were an everyday occurrence. Which it was, if Beetlejuice was bored.

"Lord, we have awaited Your Glorious—"began the tall man.

"PUT A SOCK IN IT." A sock suddenly crammed the man's mouth. "I _KNOW_. I KNOW _EVERYTHING_. GIVE ME A BREAK. ANYWAY. YOU HAVE COME TO PURGATORY, AND YOUR SINS HAVE BEEN WASHED AWAY. I MEAN PURGED, THEY'VE BEEN PURGED. NOT LIKE 'VOMITED.' IF THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE THINKING I MEAN."

The group blinked up at the towering man, looking confused. "Lord," said the tall man, "we're Baptists. We don't believe in Purgatory."

"ARE YOU QUESTIONING ME?"

"No sir, nossir, not at all, never," they chorused.

"OK. SO. NOW YOU'RE GOING TO SHUT UP ABOUT SALVATION AND DAMNATION AND LEAVE EVERYBODY ALONE. CAPISCE?"

The group blinked.

The teen boy raised his hand.

The enormous man sighed. "YEAH, YOU IN THE BACK."

"If we're done with Purgatory, don't we move on to Your Heavenly Kingdom?"

"HOLY MYSELF! DIDN'T A GUY JUST TELL YOU THERE'S NO DISEASE, YOU CAN EAT ALL YOU WANT, DRINK ALL YOU WANT, BOINK ANYBODY YOU WANT AS MUCH AS THEY WANT, AND THERE'RE NO CONSEQUENCES? DID THAT NOT JUST HAPPEN?"

The group looked at each other for confirmation, and then vigorously nodded.

"SO WHAT THE HELL MORE DO YOU WANT? HARPS? STUCK UP ANGELS? GIFT BAGS?"

"Well," said the hefty woman, "I do like those little soaps, the kind that look like seashells, that you get in hotels, y'know, the lavender ones—"

"OH, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD." With a crack of thunder, cellophane wrapped gift bags appeared in the hands, or at the feet, of the newcomers. "THERE. SO DIE AND LET DIE, AND SHUT UP ALREADY."

With another explosion of thunder and a slash of lightning, the huge man vanished. The group smiled and nodded and walked into the shopping district, holding their bags.

Sneering, Beetlejuice appeared in normal form in Central Central Park, across the street from the corner.

"That," said a voice with an Irish accent, "was of great amusement, sir."

"Saw it, did ya?" Beetlejuice put his hands in his pockets and warily looked at the heavy-set man in the powdered wig, black clothes, and white collar, who was sitting at the same park chess game table, with the same people, where he was every afternoon when the ghost happened to pass by. "I was _gonna_ take them to a portal, tell 'em Herbert World was New Jerusalem, an' feed 'em to th' Sandworms."

"But you didn't," said the pale, bald man with large, dark eyes, wearing a turtleneck under a corduroy jacket. He turned to a man with copper skin and graying black hair. "That's where he deviates from the trope. Coyote would have done it."

"No, the Trickster is chaos," said the darker-skinned man with the deep voice, "but he is not a murderer."

"Are you talkin' about _me_?" Beetlejuice strolled over to the table.

"You are a person who inspires fascination," said a woman in a white Grecian robe.

"Don't you know it, baby." The ghost smoothed back his dry hair with his palm. "I stand out bigger than all the others." He leaned over and said, in his deepest voice, "An' I can prove it. How about we _both_ get under that sheet an' play Dirty Laundry?"

The woman laughed. "The insatiable sex drive, as well as the inflated ego! It is even as you say about Coyote, Heȟáka Sápa!"

"Whut?" snapped Beetlejuice, indignant.

"Aspasia, he is _not_ Coyote, any more than he is Raven or Reynard," said the bewigged man with the white collar. "Or Beelzebub."

"Why don't you get a death?" Beetlejuice sat back in mid air. "You guys sit here every week, jawin', when you could out havin' fun."

"And you come, at least once a week, to listen, and pretend that you are not." The man in black offered Beetlejuice his hand. "Forgive us our neglect. I, sir, am George Berkeley, late of Dysert Castel, Ireland, and Oxford. These are Aspasia of Athens, Greece; Samuel Johnston, late of Staffordshire and Oxford; Heȟáka Sápa, often known as Black Elk, late of Little Powder River, Wyoming; and Professor Carl Sagan, late of Brooklyn, New York."

"Beetlejuice," said the ghost, shaking the man's hand, "late for gettin' hammered. Smell ya later." He started to float away.

"But, sir, before you go," said Samuel Johnston, "if I may be so bold to ask: What were you? Where were you?"

"Huh?" Beetlejuice halted in mid air. "Nobody asks about Before."

"We do," said Aspasia.

"How can one not?" said Black Elk.

"Why do ya wanna know?" asked Beetlejuice, suspicious.

"Because we don't know," said Sagan. "Don't you ever look around, compare it to how it was before death, and ask 'Why? How?'"

"No. What's the point?" Beetlejuice hesitated. Unable to resist, he allowed, "Ok, I got a question for ya. What are _those?_ "

Beetlejuice indicated a group of furry creatures whose limbs were scaly tentacles, strolling by with Ice Scream cones.

"I never saw anything like that Before. Are they dead? Where'd they come from?"

The group let out a simultaneous, delighted murmur.

"This has been a particular area of study of Professor Sagan," said Johnson.

"The nonhuman creatures are as real as we are, and we were," said Sagan, eagerly. "I've interviewed lots of them. They're as reluctant to discuss their previous existence as humans from Earth are, but what I've learned from the little they'll tell is they're from what must be other planets, and other dimensions."

"Gimme a break," said Beetlejuice. "Now yer gonna tell me there are Little Green Men."

"I don't believe in _you_ , either," said the little green man with antenna, walking by in Hawaiian shorts.

"You know about Sandworms," said Sagan. "Most of us had encounters with them when we first stumbled across a perimeter. Their planet is Saturn. But it's _not_ Saturn, not the Saturn observed and studied during my lifetime, in my solar system. It's seemingly another Saturn, in another solar system like but unlike my solar system, in a dimension layered _over_ the dimension I lived in."

"Who knows how many layers upon layers there are," said Aspasia. "With uncountable different beings."

"The world we come from, Beetlejuice, is one of many hoops which make one circle," added Black Elk. "We believe the portals occur when the hoops touch."

"For some reason, the dead can cross between dimensions which the living can't," said Sagan. "I think it's because the dead are more…well, for lack of a better term, _elemental_."

"So why do all these people an' creatures end up _here_ after they Bite It?" demanded Beetlejuice. "What is this, th' All Dead Warehouse?"

"It could be," said Sagan. "No one's ever measured the size of the Neitherworld. It may be infinite, more than enough to hold all the dead. Perhaps there's a turn over, a kind of reincarnation, for some beings. It could be that this is the infinity in which dwell all dimensions and universes, and from which they come. Maybe this is what was before the Big Bang. Maybe this isn't Death, but a collective Primal Soup, where matter and elements –"

"Now I _really_ know that you need to get laid," said Beetlejuice. "Alright, answer me this. _Why_ do I have powers I didn't have Before? An' why don't a lot of the dead have 'em, or have as much as I do?"

"That," said Sagan, "is why we've noticed you."

"We are speculating," said Aspasia, "that the determining factor is imagination."

"Imagination is more important than knowledge," piped up a man with a German accent, a bushy gray moustache, and wild gray hair, who was seated at the next chess table, concentrating on the board as a creature that looked like a gargoyle indecisively fingered a knight.

"There are those who have great imagination," said Berkeley, "but will not employ it, due to the inability to transcend societal, religious, and moral restrictions, which they cannot or will not shed on This Side. Therefore, they do not have, or cannot use, such 'powers' as _you_ may call to hand."

"But those who have the least compunctions," said Johnson, "and the greater imagination, may, by instinct alone, call upon abilities they could not in their previous existence."

"Being elemental," said Sagan, "one thing can shift to another. Think of it as constantly being able to do what a caterpillar does, when it's becoming a butterfly. The Neitherworld is an eternal cocoon."

"The Dead are in a state of Becoming," said Black Elk. "While the Living are fixed into Being."

"That is not to say that the Living world is itself material," said George Berkeley.

"Oh, not _this_ again," groaned Samuel Johnson.

"Now Johnson, even in death all we have is _perception_. We have no _proof_ of material substance. The existence of the universe is merely an idea we assume from our senses. We can never perceive substance directly."

"Oh, don't go there," said Sagan.

"What we _experience_ ," said Berkeley, on a roll, "are tastes, odors, colors, and such, which we conclude come from the observed material world."

"You're bollocks," said Johnson, with feeling.

"But we are experiencing the sensations, not the material substance itself," Berkeley continued, undeterred. "Therefore, it is impossible to prove that substance exists. This you cannot refute, Johnson."

"I refute it thus!" said Johnson, and punched Berkeley in the nose.

The two large men dropped to the ground, rolling and hitting and pulling each other's wigs off. They were immediately surrounded by men and women in togas, dress robes with mortar boards, and clerical uniforms, pumping their fists and excitedly yelling, "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Berkeley and Johnson collapsed on their backs on the park grass, clothes dirty and torn, giggling.

"They never let us do _that_ at Oxford!" laughed Berkeley.

"An' they call _me_ a nutjob." Beetlejuice floated away from the cheering crowd. "I am _so_ gettin' plastered today."

The Living End was a new bar. Therefore, it hadn't banned Beetlejuice. Yet.

The place was full, but quiet. The ghost floated in and found a seat at the crowded bar. The bartender, who looked like a green dragon with a green octopus for a head, with great bat-like wings folded against his back, glanced up from washing beer mugs.

"One of yer best," said Beetlejuice.

"Best what?" asked the bartender.

Beetlejuice blinked. "Ya got more than one?"

"Look, pal," said the bartender, straightening up and adjusting his _Dunwich Horror Now On Tap_ apron, "be specific. I can't read your mind. Well, yeah, I _can_. But who wants to do that all day, in a _bar_ , of all places? You have no idea."

Beetlejuice peered at the shelves of bottles in front of the large mirror behind the bar. His eyes popped when he saw the reflection of the person seated to his left. He turned, his eyes half-lidded. Grinning leeringly, and said, "I'll have what _she's_ havin'."

"You want that Diet Tab straight up, or on the rocks?" asked the bartender.

"Just pop the can and gimme _two_ straws, my good man."

Beetlejuice leaned his back against the bar. His right arm stretched unnaturally far along it, in front of the bluish young woman wrapped in a bath towel, with wet feet and her spine protruding from the back of her neck. He said, in his smoothest, deepest voice, "Judgin' from the way yer dressed, you've been waitin' for me."

The woman sipped her Tab, and glared straight ahead.

The ghost's right wrist stretched down from its arm, until the forefinger and thumb of its hand were playing with the edge of the bath towel. "The Beetlejuice Playland is open an' ready fer business. Thrills a minute, guaranteed. An' _you_ get free admission."

The woman's handbag slammed across Beetlejuice's face.

"A purse! I was wondering where ya kept yer money."

The purse smacked again.

"OK, OK," said Beetlejuice through the hair in his face. "I can get into that." He raised his hands, his fingers trembling. "Ooo, hurt me, hurt me, you big, strong—"

The third blow landed him on his back on the tile floor. The woman stomped over him, headed for the door.

"I take it that wasn't foreplay?" he yelled after her.

Beetlejuice got to his feet, yanked his crumpled suit down and his pants up, shot his cuffs, straightened his lapels, and smoothed his hair. He turned to the ashy black woman in the hospital gown on the next stool, and produced a long, licentious smile. "I was just tryin' t' get rid of her, so I could have a shot at _you_ , Scrumptious."

She punched him in the nose. He hit the floor. She stepped over him on the way out.

The ghost grabbed the stool where she'd been sitting and hauled himself upright. He confided to a gray-haired woman on the next stool, "Ever notice that since we're all dead, nobody hesitates t' use physical violence?"

The old woman sipped a green liquor, refusing to acknowledge Beetlejuice's existence.

Beetlejuice's smiled. "Speaking of physical—"

"Oh, please," said the old woman, drily. "I am no one's act of desperation."

"Well, down that, Blue Eyes, and look again. They say absinthe makes the heart grow fonder."

The woman punched him in the nose. Beetlejuice hit the floor. She stepped over him.

The bartender leaned over the bar and said to the ghost, who was flat on his back on the floor, "You owe me five bucks."

Beetlejuice remembered that he was broke when a voice, faint and very, very distant, whispered in his mind.

 _Home_.

"Lydia!" Beetlejuice whispered back. In a crack of light and thunder, he vanished.


	2. Chapter 2

Beetlejuice ran to the mirror on his dresser.

The curtains were pulled in Lydia's room. It was warm with early evening light. A suitcase lay open on the bed, with folded clothes beside it. Black boots and black Converse sneakers with a skull and spider web design were on the floor beside the bed.

But where was she?

Beetlejuice heard the sound of a hanger being hooked in the closet, and pressed his face against the portal. Lydia stepped from the closet. Her hair was pinned back; she wore a red t-shirt, a black, pleated skirt, and flat-soled black shoes. He could see the black suit jacket she'd just hung up.

"Hey!" Beetlejuice shouted.

Lydia started. "Oh. You."

"Yeah, _me_! Where've _you_ been?"

"Locked in a car with Delia for seven hours. And Dad. Though Dad's presence was pretty much unnoticeable. As always." Lydia plunked down on the bed. She popped off one shoe with the toe of the other, then kicked off the first.

"Did ya just get in? Why didn't ya call for me th' second you guys got into Peaceful Pines? I coulda been waitin'—"

"It's been a long day. Okay?" Lydia wiped her hands across her face.

"Makeup? What th' hell are ya wearin' _makeup_ for?"

"Because one wears makeup when one's stepmother makes the family have dinner with one's new Dean." Lydia's voice was very dry and weary. "The Deetz's are very popular in academia. We have a lot of money, you know. Even with the collapse in the real estate market. Apparently, Dad had the good sense to shift his interests into technology." The young woman sighed. "It's been a long _month._ "

"Let me in, an' tell me all about it!" Beetlejuice hopped eagerly.

She gazed at the mirror with tired eyes.

"Lyds?"

"I really need to get to sleep."

"But…It's not even dark yet."

"I really do."

"But…"

Lydia took a dark cranberry shawl from the suitcase and walked to the dresser with the mirror on it. She flipped the large, oval mirror towards the wall.

"Lyds! What's gotten into ya?"

"'Bye." The shawl was draped over the mirror, effectively blocking all sight and sound from Lydia's bedroom.

Beetlejuice stared at the silent black oval of his mirror.

"' _Bye?"' Not "See ya tomorrow?" Or even "Good night, sleep tight, hope the bedbugs bite?'_

Beetlejuice sat on the mattress of his coffin bed, his hands limp between his knees.

 _She didn't say she missed me. That she was happy to see me._ A realization, more disturbing than the others, hit him.

 _She didn't say my name. Not even once_.


	3. Chapter 3

Beetlejuice woke to the sound of a cloth being pulled off something. In a second he was upright in bed and blinking. He hadn't changed from his suit, or even removed his boots. He jumped up and ran to the mirror.

The black oval was turning on the Other Side. Slowly, it revealed morning in Lydia's Deetz's bedroom.

Aaand….she wasn't there.

Delia Deetz was.

"AAA!" yelled Beetlejuice, and immediately dropped to the floor.

"What on earth? Lydia! Did you just scream?"

"No, Mother," came Lydia's voice from down the hall, sounding as if her mouth were full. There followed the sounds of water running, and spitting.

"Charles?"

"I haven't tasted breakfast, dear," came Charles Deetz's voice from downstairs, "so I haven't had a reason to scream."

"Ha ha. Lydia, _why_ did you have the mirror turned to the wall? And the cashmere shawl I got you from Gianfranco Ferre's over it?"

"Mother, get out of my room!" There was the sound of hurrying, slippered feet.

"Yeah, get the frick outta her room," Beetlejuice breathed angrily.

"Charles, it's a three hour drive to Hartford, so either eat now or starve till we get there."

"Starving might be preferable," said Charles.

" _You're_ the one who brought us to this godforsaken hamlet of nothingness for peace and quiet, with no Thai restaurants, no delicatessens." Beetlejuice could hear Delia poking and prodding. "Didn't being in civilization again make you realize that's where we need to be? Lydia's going to be in Bronxville; if we moved back to Manhattan, it'd be only a few hours' drive to—"

"Mother, get out of my _dresser!"_ Beetlejuice heard a drawer slam.

"Lydia, where do you keep getting such _unusual_ jewelry? If Bitsy Menkin saw this spider brooch, she'd demand to know where you got it. Is it that antique shop in the village? You could collect a Finder's Fee for hooking Bitsy up, dear."

"It was a gift from a friend! Put it back!"

 _Yeah, I gave it to her! Keep your crummy hands off!_

"Looks like pure silver with maracite, from the Forties. Well, I'm sure I don't know any of your little friends who can afford an antique piece of this quality."

"Lydia has friends?" said Charles.

"Look, once I'm at Sarah Lawrence, you can paw through my room all you want. Will you just _leave me alone till then?"_

 _Whoa_ , thought Beetlejuice. _I've never heard her talk like that to her folks before. Or anyone else._

"Still cranky from the drive, hmm? Well, spare us the adolescent angst, okay? You've got the _whole_ house to yourself for two days. Don't even bother thinking of me, trying to find _something_ to do in Hartford while your father dumps foreclosed McMansions on the unwitting."

"I'm so glad my tuition is being paid with the misery of others," said Lydia, sourly.

"If you want to go to some radical community college to become a Photojournalist, well, don't let _us_ stop you. We'll just tell the Dean and his son that, oopsy, we made a mistake, our daughter would rather earn her tuition by flipping hamburgers, so she doesn't have to feel guilty about getting the best education money can buy—"

"Delia, breakfast!" yelled Charles.

 _The Dean and his son?_ thought Beetlejuice.

"All right!" yelled Delia. "You might eat with us, Lydia, unless you're just so exhausted."

"I'm not hungry, and I want to change."

"Whatever."

Beetlejuice waited as the door closed, and Delia's heels clacked down the stairs. Slowly, he peeked through the bottom of the mirror.

Lydia's hair was pinned up. She wore black, red and green plaid flannel pajamas and matching slippers, which looked new and expensive. She stood at the window, her right hand holding back the curtain. Her face was shaded.

"Babes?"

Lydia started. "Oh." She hesitated. "Hey."

"So. Two days with th' 'rents away, an' Lyds can play! Yeah?"

"Um," was all she said.

"Um," echoed Beetlejuice, his brow furrowing. "Where'd ya get th' new 'jams?"

"New York City shopping spree. Delia was in Heaven. I was her own personal Dress Up doll. I got a whole new wardrobe, whether I liked it or not." Lydia slowly ran her hands over the baggy pajama top. "She didn't ask me what I wanted; she bought what she thought I should have. What a young lady of money and pseudo breeding should wear at Sarah Lawrence."

"That's th' name of th' college, right?"

Lydia made a small laugh. "It's nice to talk to somebody who doesn't know a thing about it. Delia trotted me out like a show dog. 'My daughter's going to Sarah Lawrence this fall! She's going to stay at the best residence, and we've had dinner with the Dean and his family ever so many times, and…'" Lydia sighed. "I was trapped in a bad modern version of a Jane Austen novel." The girl's voice dropped as she murmured, "As for Mr. Darcy…"

"He yer Dean?" asked Beetlejuice.

Lydia laughed, this time full and joyful, the way Beetlejuice was used to. He perked up.

As she looked at him, Lydia's expression melted. It became unreadable. It was as if she were reassessing something after thinking about it, very hard, for a long time. It made him uncomfortable. It was the first time anything having to do with her had made him uncomfortable.

"Did you even _try_ callin' me when you were there?" said Beetlejuice, petulantly. "We were gonna find out if it works long-distance."

"I didn't want to be distracted," said Lydia, fingering the top button of her pajama top. "Going to university…it's the most important thing in my life."

The ghost tried to sound as if he were joking. "I thought meeting _me_ was th' most important thing in yer life."

Saying nothing, Lydia went to the dresser and opened the top drawer. Beetlejuice noticed she didn't look at him, though their faces were only a foot away from each other. She took out a dark purple, long-sleeved shirt which buttoned up the front, and, from the drawer beneath that, she pulled black jeans.

"So why don't ya start at th' beginnin'," said Beetlejuice, desperate to break the silence.

"I almost don't know where that is anymore." Lydia turned her back to the mirror. "Okay, we got to Bronxville, New York, and I went to Admissions." Her hands were doing something.

"Uh huh," said Beetlejuice.

"And then we met the Dean, who Dad knows because of some Real Estate or business connection I don't care about…"

"Uh huh," said Beetlejuice.

"And we were given a personal, insider's tour of the college…" Lydia's pajama top fell to the floor.

It took Beetlejuice several seconds to register the black strip of cloth horizontal across the girl's back. Lace, with black hooks.

 _A bra? A BRA?_

Lydia turned around. "My residence room's really nice."

Beetlejuice's eyes bulged.

 _A black lace bra…with tits?_

"I haven't met my roommate yet. I was told the selection committee tries 'very hard to match compatible tastes and temperaments.'"

 _Tits? When did Lydia get TITS?_

"Beetlejuice?"

His wide eyes traveled down Lydia's shape. _And a waist! And HIPS! And thighs!_

"Are you listening?"

 _When did my babes turn into a babe?!_

"Pardon me if I'm boring you," said Lydia, sarcastically. She stuck her thumbs in the elastic waistband of her pajama bottoms and pulled them down her hips.

 _Black lace….panties._ The response below Beetlejuice's own waistband was immediate.

Lydia paused as she bent over and picked up the black jeans from the floor. She squinted at the mirror. "Are you all right?"

"eep," squeaked Beetlejuice. Beads of sweat poured down his temples.

"What's the problem? You actually look red in the face. I didn't think that could happen. It's not like you have a working circulatory system anymore."

 _Oh, don't I? Holy crap, thank god she can't see me below the waist… Yeah. She can't see me below the waist…_

"It really is beautiful there." Lydia turned from the mirror, put a knee on the mattress, and stretched for her socks on the other side of the bed. She turned around, sat with her legs wide, and pulled on a sock.

 _Ooohh, don't sit like that…yes, YES, sit like that…_

Lydia looked up. "What are you doing?"

"Whaaat?" blurted the ghost. "I'm scratchin' an itch!"

"Pretty hard."

"Oh, yeah. It's pretty hard. I mean, it's one bad itch, I mean… Lyds, I'll get back to ya inna few minutes. Somethin' big's come up."

"But I was about to call you. Don't you want to come in?"

"Babes, you have _no_ idea how _bad_ I wanna _come in_."

"Your voice is cracking," said Lydia, irritably. "It's difficult talking to you in the mirror. Come over to this side."

"NO!"

"Beetlejuice…"

"Not right now!"

"Beetlejuice…"

"I need a little alone time in th' shower! Well, I don't shower, but there's a first time for every—"

"Beetlejuice!"

When the thunder and flash of light ended, Beetlejuice was in the air above Lydia's bed. Immediately he yanked his shirt tail over his open fly and crossed his legs. He landed with a thump on the mattress, grabbed a pillow, stuffed it over his lap, and leaned forward with his elbows planted on the pillow and his chin resting with feigned nonchalance in his palms.

"Soooo…" Beetlejuice smiled and cleared his throat. "Tell me th' rest."

"Why are you all sweaty?" Lydia asked.

"I ate a Bombardier beetle," said the ghost. "It was a mistake."

"Anything new happen while I was away?" Lydia zipped her jeans.

"Nothin' worth mentionin'. Sooooooooooooo….did you pick out th' new underwear, or did Delia?" He swallowed with difficulty, and pressed down firmly on the pillow.

"You wouldn't think I'd wear something lacy, would you?"

"It's not so much th' laciness, as th'…bra-ishness. Th' fact that yer wearin' one. A bra." Beetlejuice blinked, trying to keep his concentration on Lydia's eyes. Her eyes… when had her lashes gotten so long, thick, and midnight black? He shook his head as if something were crawling in his ear.

"I've been wearing a bra for over a year now."

"Oh? Really? I, uh, hadn't noticed," he said, honestly.

"You haven't noticed a lot of things." Lydia pulled on the shirt and buttoned it.

"Huh? Like what?" Mashing the pillow angrily down on his crotch, he added, "How was I supposed t' notice anythin', since you've spent th' past year bein' busy, studyin', takin' tests, an' volunteerin'? An' ignorin' me!"

"I would've let you help me more, if you could take things seriously for fifteen minutes."

"What's _that_ supposed t' mean?"

Lydia said, in a voice Beetlejuice couldn't place as sad or angry or confused, "I don't think you take _me_ seriously."

"What? Lyds, we've been best friends fer years!"

"And you never noticed that I wear a bra, until today."

"It's not like ya sent out a memo! 'To Whom It May Concern: I, Lydia Deetz, Now Have Tits.'"

Lydia smiled. "I can't believe you said that word."

 _I can't believe I said it, either. And in front of you._ "Look, it's not like I'm around when yer undressin', or takin' a shower. An' I wouldn't look if ya were. An' ya only swim at school, or when yer on vacation someplace else. Ya always wear baggy, comfortable clothes. How was I t' know that… _that_ happened?"

"The fact that I'm almost eighteen might have been a clue."

"Ya are? When? C'mon, ya know time doesn't have meanin' fer me anymore. I only remember stuff like holidays an' yer birthday cuz you write it on a calendar."

"I'll be eighteen in a month," said Lydia, pointedly, "and I'm going to be a freshman at Sarah Lawrence in September. Does that get you up to speed?"

"Sure, sure." She seemed angry about something. Between the pressure of the sudden and mind-blowing realization that Lydia had physically developed, seemingly overnight, and the pressure in his groin, and the girl's inexplicable snappishness, Beetlejuice felt frazzled.

"Do you want me to tell you about the rest of what happened, or not?" Lydia walked over to the dresser, opened a drawer, paused as if trying to remember why she'd opened it, and pushed it shut with more firmness than necessary.

"Sure, sure. Fire away." The pressure was going down. But the ghost's feeling of unease with Lydia's uncharacteristic behavior was rising.

"So, I saw my room. And all the campus."

"OK. Good."

Lydia sat, crossed legged, on the bed, her back to the ghost. "And we spent a lot of time with the Dean and his family. They think Dad and Delia are just _the_ most special people. And so does their son. They've got this son, Chad. He's eighteen."

"Sure. Yeah. Not surprisin'."

"And Chad asked me out."

"Uh – whut?"

"We dated for three and a half weeks."

"What?"

"We became lovers."

" _WHAT?"_

Lydia looked over her shoulder at Beetlejuice with those large, dark eyes.

Black smoke spewed from Beetlejuice's ears. He leapt off the bed and stood in the center of the room with clenched fists. His body and head expanded, lavender scales rippling down his face, neck, and his hands. Red, serrated claws stabbed through his fingertips. Flame, real flame, blasted in his eyes, and his hair became a seething mass of waving graveyard moss and hissing, venom-spitting serpents.

"HE TOUCHED YOU?" roared a voice of avalanche and thunder and tsunami from between the ghost's acid-dripping fangs and lashing, multiple striped tongues. His body bulged and writhed inside his striped suit, until he grew so tall that his head banged against the ceiling.

"Stop it!" said Lydia, jumping off the bed.

Lava erupted from the ghost's nostrils, while beetles, worms, and maggots oozed from inside his suit. "WHERE IS TH' SLIME-SUCKING BASTARD? I'LL RIP HIS LIMBS FROM HIS TORSO! I'LL CLAW HIS FACE OFF AN' EAT IT WHILE HE SCREAMS FOR MERCY!"

"You're overreacting!" yelled Lydia.

The smoke alarm went off. Beetlejuice's talons snatched it from the wall above the door and crushed it in his scaly palm. "THAT'S WHUT I'LL DO T' HIS BALL—"

"Lydia!" Charles and Delia cried, their footsteps pounding up the stairs.

"Calm down!" Lydia whispered desperately. "Get out of sight! For god's sake, pull yourself together! Do you want them to know about you?!"

The flames in his eyes snuffed. Beetlejuice vanished in a cloud of noxious black smoke.

The door flung open. Delia and Charles ran in, halted, and looked around.

"What is that _smell_?" Delia covered her nose and mouth.

"Um, new incense!" said Lydia.

"It smells like…brimstone?" Charles coughed.

"Yeah. Bad choice, wasn't it? I was always curious what brimstone smelled like, and, well, now I know!"

"Charles, go get that grapefruit and lilac candle from the second guest room." Delia hauled open two of the room's three windows. "It's Spring, Lydia. If we're going to be stuck out in the wilderness, we may as well enjoy the scent of flowers!" She waved her hands, trying to direct the stench toward the open windows. "I'm getting out of here before the smell sticks in my hair."

Lydia closed the door after her. Beetlejuice appeared at the end of the bed, scaly and fanged, huffing like a werewolf, his talons digging into the blankets.

"Did you call the police?" His voice was a rasping wind in a graveyard.

"No! It wasn't like that!" Lydia sat on the mattress.

The ghost came around the corner of the bed, small asps whipping in his moldering hair. "He drugged ya!"

"No!"

"He smooth-talked ya, poured ya glass after glass of wine till you were too drunk t' think straight—"

"I was not coerced!" Lydia looked the ghost dead in his slitted, burning eyes. "I knew what I was doing! I said _yes!_ "

Beetlejuice visibly deflated. His eyes cooled to their characteristic yellow. His fangs reformed into a green, chunky overbite. His hair faded back into long, dry yellow locks.

Beetlejuice took a few steps backwards. His brain wasn't operating. His mouth opened, hesitated, then silently shut.

"Well, say it," said Lydia.

"How could ya?" It was a whisper. "Yer just a…a.."

"A kid? I'm not a kid anymore. I'm a young woman. And I feel what a young woman feels. I have for a couple years now. It's called puberty. Maybe you remember it."

"You're only…"

"Seventeen? Right. I'm not supposed to have sexual feelings until after the preacher says, 'You may now kiss the bride.'"

Beetlejuice flinched. " _You_? You have...those kinda—"

"Yes! Yes, I do!" The young woman jumped off the bed, and stalked towards Beetlejuice with her hands above her head, her fingers curved in an imitation of claws. "How horrible! How twisted! Lydia Deetz actually experiences _horniness_! Wooooo!"

 _Horniness? Did that word come from my babes' mouth?_ The ghost backed away. "This isn't you, kid!"

"Dammit, Beetlejuice, I'm not a _kid_ anymore! This _is_ me! The me I am, now! If you weren't so immature and self-centered and egotistical, you would have noticed—"

Beetlejuice spat, "So yer all grown up, an' ya got _feelings_! Is that an excuse to hop inta bed with some snot-nosed, stuck up jerk ya only knew fer _three weeks_? What, was he so handsome an' popular that you just couldn't resist?"

"He is handsome, and popular, and wealthy, as it happens!" Lydia grabbed a pillow from the bed and threw it at the ghost. It hit him in the chest and fell to the floor. "And it wasn't bed! It was his car—" She stopped herself.

"His _car_?" Beetlejuice shook his head, as if too much information was cramming in, and he couldn't begin to comprehend the half of it. "My Lyds…smarter than anyone I know…did it fer th' first time in _some jerk's car?"_

"The second time was in a bed." Lydia chewed her lower lip. "A very nice bed."

"AAAAAA!" The ghost's head spun so fast hairs flew from it. He grabbed it with both hands, halting it with a jolt. " _You did it more than once?"_

"I suppose the first time you ever did it you were at a five-star hotel, with rose petals and the stereo playing romantic music!"

"Hey, we are not talkin' about _me_!"

"We never do!" Lydia grabbed the pillow off the floor and brandished it at the ghost. "Okay, Mr. Pure! How old were you when you first did it?"

"Don't ask about Before!" said Beetlejuice, backing away.

"That's every ghosts' excuse!" Lydia said, in a whiny voice, "'Don't ask about Before, nobody talks about Before!'" She continued, her voice normal and angry, as she advanced on Beetlejuice, "That is _such_ a cop-out! I want to know how old _you_ were when you first did it! And _where_ you did it!"

"It's none of yer business!" he yelped, retreating up onto the bed.

"It's my business, if you're going to stand there and _judge_ me!"

"Judge? _Me?_ Lyds, I'm not in any position t' judge anybody about anythin'!"

"Exactly!" Lydia leapt onto the bed and batted the pillow at him. Beetlejuice jumped to the floor, gripped one of the bed's posts, and kept it between himself and the young woman. "But you get _literally_ burned up just hearing that I'm a _normal, healthy_ girl," she swatted at him with each word, "with _normal, healthy desires! Who do you think you are, you creep?"_

"I'm not a creep!" he yelled back, ducking. "Well, yeah, I am, but not that way! I don't think what ya did was dirty," he ducked, "or filthy," duck, "but, but it was _you! And until twenty minutes ago, I never saw you as anythin' but a kid!"_

Lydia stopped. Her hair had come undone. It was longer than Beetlejuice remembered, now reaching past her shoulders.

"That's what I mean." Lydia's voice was colored with hurt. "Why couldn't you see I was changing?"

"Because," said the ghost, cautiously, speaking for the first time of what he only just realized he knew, "I'm past change. I'm _dead_. Th' world I'm from, we don't change. You lost yer leg from diabetes, that leg doesn't grow back. If you were a screwed up moron when ya died, yer a screwed up moron for eternity. After a while, you forget what change _is_. One of th' reasons I liked being with ya is…I got t' experience what it was t' see things as new. T' experience _life_."

Lydia slowly sat on the edge of the bed. "Then why couldn't you notice that _I_ was changing?"

"Hell," Beetlejuice said, quietly, "I've heard even parents don't notice. They look up one day an' their daughter says, 'Hey, Pops, I wanna buy a bra,' or 'Mom, will ya take me to th' clinic t' get birth control?', an' they have little heart attacks." Beetlejuice swallowed. "You're a – you were a kid t' me. I never saw ya… _that_ way. I may be a letch, but I'm not a _pervert_. In fact, pedophiles are the only people automatically condemned to being fed to Sandworms when they Cross Over. Usually by their former victims. It's about the only form of justice in the Neitherworld everybody agrees to. I could never see ya as anythin' but a talented, sweet, smart kid."

"I know." Lydia hugged the pillow, gently, as if it were alive, and might scurry off if she demonstrated too much affection for it. "I always knew I was safe with you. You were my best friend, like a crazy uncle the rest of the family tells you to stay away from, but who's more interesting and more fun than anyone else. And who treats you like a person, not a child. And who would never, ever hurt you."

Beetlejuice sat down in the small armchair across from the bed, his shoulders hunched, his hands clasped between his knees, drowning in the flood of new emotions. He'd never dealt with this kind of thing in his life. The Afterlife had certainly not prepared him for it.

"How did you die?" Lydia asked.

Beetlejuice held up his hand, which was trembling. "Don't. Seriously."

"Okay. I respect that." Lydia hesitated, then spoke as if deciding to ask something which had been on her mind for a long time. "Do ghosts have sex?"

"Whut?" said Beetlejuice, startled.

"I know you still feel pain. And pleasure. Do ghosts have sex?"

His throat constricted. The words came out reluctantly. "Yeah. Yeah, ghosts still have sex. There's no sexually transmitted diseases, no pregnancies, so, with that gone, a lot of people who didn't much Before do After."

Lydia asked, quietly, "Do _you_?"

Beetlejuice blew air with a loud, nervous _pfffft!_ "Babes, you've seen how popular I am in th' Neitherworld."

"Do you," the corner of Lydia's mouth twitched, as if she were fighting back a grin, "touch yourself?"

"Lyds! _Jeez!"_

"Well, do you?"

"I am not talkin' about myself!"

"I know that ghosts look the way they did at the moment of death." Lydia set her chin on the top of the pillow she was hugging. "Do you have _all_ your body parts?"

Beetlejuice's nostrils flared indignantly. "I'm all present an' in workin' order!"

"You can change your shape. Can you change," she looked down towards his crotch, " _that?"_

At that moment, looking at Lydia looking at him, Beetlejuice's psychological reality shifted with an earthquake.

 _She's thinks of me._ _ **That way**_ _._

"Maybe…" Lydia's voice was as soft as the down in the pillow. Her half-lidded eyes gazed directly into Beetlejuice's widening ones. "Maybe I don't want to be safe anymore."

The door opened. Lydia gasped. Beetlejuice vanished in an instant.

He reappeared under the bed. It was alarmingly clean – Delia hired a cleaning brigade to scour the entire house once a week—and there were only Lydia's slippers and a cardboard box with no lid.

Lying on his stomach, peering up, Beetlejuice could see the dresser mirror. Reflected in it was Lydia, patting the pillow in place at the headboard, and Chicken-livered Chuckie in a green business suit, holding a large, pink-yellow pillar candle.

"Are you okay, pumpkin?"

"Sure, Dad." Her tone lacked conviction.

"Here's the phone number where we'll be staying, and…"

Charles Deetz's voice faded from Beetlejuice's distracted attention. _"Lydia Deetz actually_ _experiences_ _hornines!"_ The idea of Lydia feeling desire, feeling passion, was impossible…except that she had made it quite clear that, not only was it possible, it was inescapable truth.

 _She's thinks of me._ _ **That way**_ _._

 _Naw! This is_ _ **me**_ _we're talkin' about. And this is_ _ **her**_ _. She's talented, smart, funny, confident, and sticks by her principles, even when the kids at school, and adults, give her hell. So naturally the guy she picked is nothin' like me. "He is handsome, and popular, and wealthy, as it happens!"_ Beetlejuice gritted his teeth, trying to rid himself of the mental image of Lydia with this guy, in his car, in some "very nice" bed. The curse of his vivid imagination was to very clearly see in his mind whatever he thought. He imagined a tall young man of eighteen, naturally blond, probably from hearty Anglo-Saxon stock, with deep blue eyes, fit from all the sports he excelled at, with new, clean clothes which fit him perfectly, opening the door to a Mercedes for Lydia, in order to drive her away to some secluded spot, and-

"AA!" yelled Beetlejuice, pulling his own hair in an attempt to make it stop. The ghost slapped his hand over his mouth.

He saw Charles Deetz's loafers jump. "What was that?"

"A crow," said Lydia. "Flew by, going 'caaaw.'"

As Beetlejuice slid further back under the bed, his elbow bumped the box. He froze, but neither Charles nor Lydia seemed to have heard. Out of curiosity, the ghost looked in.

 _A hand towel?_ He took it out of the box. It was wrapped around something long and hard. Beetlejuice unwrapped it.

Into his palm fell an object made of silicone, approximately six inches long, which was a detailed replica of a prominent part of the male anatomy at fullest sexual attention.

"EEE!" Beetlejuice dropped it.

"What was _that_?" yelped Charles.

"A…a kestrel!" Lydia cleared her throat. "Gosh, Dad, you're the one with the bird watching hobby."

 _My Lydia uses one of_ _ **these**_ _?_ Beetlejuice peered suspiciously at the object, lying on the floor in front of him. He poked it. _Where th' hell did she get it? No place in Peaceful Pines sells this kind of stuff._ He turned the box over and squinted at the shipping label. _VIP Very Intimate Pleasures dot com, Hartford CT. Huh. Parents should really keep an eye on what their kids do on the Internet._

He snorted derisively. _So you're my competition? HA!_ He crammed the object into the box. _I can do better than_ _ **that**_.

 _Waitaminnit. Does this mean…that I'm thinking.._ His heart kicked. _…that_ _ **I**_ _want to replace the snot-nosed kid, and the hunk of plastic? Am I really allowing myself to think that?_ Slowly, a toothy smile, licentious, hungry, and eager, spread across his face. His eyes literally glowed.

There was a Rule about the living and the dead that originated further back in time than anyone could measure. It was that, with the exception of the perimeters set for a haunting, a ghost couldn't enter the living world, or come into contact with a living being, unless a living being invited her or him in. Additionally, in Beetlejuice's case –probably because his powers were so potent—his restriction was that his name had to be spoken in the eternal threes. But after that had been done, the other way was to speak intent. To speak _permission_.

 _Maybe I don't want to be safe anymore._

Lydia knew the Rules. She knew he knew that she knew the Rules. _Permission was being granted, and she knew he'd know it._

"…do you really want this candle?" Charles Deetz was asking his daughter.

"I'm not a grapefruit and lilac kind of girl," said Lydia. "The incense smell's gone now, anyway."

Charles sniffed. "Every now and then, though, your room smells like sweat socks. You don't wear sweat socks, do you?"

"I pretended to have mange in order to get out of gym, remember?"

"Right. Smart girl. Wish I'd thought of that in high school. So, here's the contact list, and some cash. Treat yourself while you're away from Delia's cooking."

Lydia giggled. "Thanks, Dad. Um…just one more thing."

Beetlejuice stiffened. The young woman's tone had become serious.

"We've never had a…a Father-Daughter talk."

Beetlejuice heard Charles gulp.

"About?"

"About when children grow into young adults, and start looking at each other in a certain way."

Beetlejuice saw Charles' right foot step on his left foot. "Weren't those books a help? And that class at Miss Shannon's?"

"It was all dry facts. I need to talk about…feelings. Sexual feelings."

"Feelings." Charles' loafers stumbled over to the window. "Look. Birdies. Birdies like flax seed. We need flax seed."

"Dad…about Chad Lowell..."

"DELIA!" Charles' loafers scrambled to the door, which he yanked open. "LYDIA WANTS TO TALK TO YOU." He dashed down the stairs.

Lydia sighed.

Beetlejuice, lying on his back, poked his head out from under the bed and snorted at Lydia. "What'd ya expect from _him_?"

"If you can't keep quiet, I'll call you back to the Neitherworld!"

"Guess you won't be lonely if ya do." Beetlejuice waved the silicone object as if it were a puppet. "Who's yer little friend? 'Hi, Lydia! Let's play!' Oops, not so little."

"OH!" Lydia tried to grab it, but Beetlejuice kept his hand out of reach.

"Does Chaaaaaad measure up?"

They heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

" _Get!"_ Lydia grabbed Beetlejuice's hair and shoved him under the bed.

The door opened, and Delia walked in with a dramatic sigh. "Your father's hyperventilating into a paper bag, so I assume you tried to talk to him about sex."

"I thought it'd be worth a try."

Another theatrical sigh. "I was so hoping you'd be gay. It'd save so much bother." Delia came over to the bed and sat down. Beetlejuice could see she and Lydia in the mirror. "Lydia, here's all you need to know about heterosexual men. They only think about sex, and they'll jump on any female who shows even an atom of interest. They'll risk their jobs, their marriages, their family life, their reputation, just to get some. If men aren't already sniffing around you like the dogs they are, they will be. They'll say they love and respect you, that you're the only one, and after they get what they're after, they'll dump you like a used Kleenex. But they earn more money than we do, and they can be kind of fun if you're in the mood. Got it?"

"But, what about love?"

"What about it?"

"Well, don't you and Dad love each other?"

The sound Delia made could best be described as _snurfle_. "I'm not sure what you'd call what we have for each other, but it works. Your father's still-waters-running-deep. On the surface, placid as a paper towel. But underneath, he likes a life of _action_. And I provide it."

Beetlejuice gagged silently.

Lydia's voice was tighter. "Then why'd he and my mom divorce?"

"Because your mother ran off with her yoga instructor. Wait till you're forty, dear, and you'll understand."

"You're saying _no_ man is loyal and loving and faithful?"

"Of course they are. Until they get tired of you. That's what Pre-Nups are for." Delia paused. "Oh please; you're not in love with _Chad_ , are you?"

Beetlejuice felt a cold chill down his back.

"No! We only dated!"

"Lydia, spare me. You've slept with him."

"How do you know?" said Lydia.

 _How does she know?_ thought Beetlejuice.

"I _am_ a woman of the world. I spotted Chad drooling after you even before _you_ did."

"I…I," Lydia stammered.

"Don't be embarrassed, for god's sake. So. Was he as lousy in the sack as I bet he was?"

 _What?_ thought Beeltejuice.

"Um," said Lydia. Beetlejuice felt her weight shift on the bed.

"Between us girls, Lydia. C'mon."

"Well….probably." Lydia's voice became a little louder. "Not lousy so much as…really, really dull. And really quick. Well, I guess that _is_ lousy."

Beetlejuice beamed.

"Well of course, Lydia. He's eighteen. Boys that age think they know everything about sex, when all they know is how to please themselves, and _that_ doesn't take much. I don't suppose he even _asked_ what you like?" Delia paused. "You do know what you like by now, don't you? I let you order that VIP toy on my card."

 _WHAT?_ Beetlejuice mind boggled, which was a bit painful. _DELIA knew Lydia ordered that thing?_

"Yes," said Lydia, still speaking a bit louder than normal. "I know what I like. And no, Chad didn't ask."

 _Why is she talking louder?_ Beetlejuice realized, suddenly, that Lydia _wanted_ him to hear.

"For heaven's sakes, you should have put on your clothes and walked away! Why waste your time? Please tell me you're not one of those idiot women who's just interested in pleasing the man!"

"I'm not like that! I just kept thinking, 'Maybe this will start being sexy, maybe he'll stop being so clumsy,' and it was over."

"You mean, _he_ was over."

Lydia sighed. "Yeah."

Beetlejuice silently snorted. _Teenagers. No stamina._

"Quite obviously your heart wasn't into it," said Delia.

Lydia said, softly, "I didn't want my heart to be into it."

 _What?_ The idea that Lydia would let some guy touch her just for fun didn't register with what Beetlejuice knew about the young woman's ethical code.

"Oh. Right," said Delia.

"What do you know about it?" Lydia sounded ashamed and suspicious.

"Stop looking at me like I'm an ancient crone. I was your age once. You wanted to know what it was like to have sex, but you didn't want to do it with someone you actually cared about, in case it went wrong. And Chad is absolutely not your type. God knows what your type _is_ , but Chad isn't it."

Beetlejuice's breathing intensified.

"And that's why Chad picked _you_ ," said Delia. "Hope that doesn't hurt your feelings."

"No." Lydia's tone said that she sincerely wasn't hurt. "He picked me because, while his parents think you and Dad are _special_ people, they think I'm a freak. Dating me was his way of getting at them, for whatever reason. Chad has Issues." Lydia shifted on the bed again, right above where Beetlejuice lay on his stomach. "Chad's been with other girls, but they were always the Right Kind. He kept flattering me, saying I was _so_ different from the girls he knew –which is so true—and I was unique and alluring."

"When all he wanted was to get into your pants." Delia clicked her tongue. "God, men never change. And no, the Lowells don't think we're special people. They think we're rich, influential people. Which your father is. The Lowells are stuck-up little shits. But who cares? They're giving you preferential treatment, and that's all that matters. You have to take the upper hand in this world, Lydia."

 _Man,_ thought Beetlejuice, impressed in spite of himself. _Delia's not as stupid as she's seemed._

"So it's not wrong that I had sex with him, just to…find out?"

"Did you use protection?"

"He wasn't getting within a mile of me without it."

"Good girl!" Delia paused. "Both times?"

"Mother! How'd you know? Wait, wait, I know: You're a woman of the world. Yes, both times."

"Was it any better the second time?"

"No. Just more comfortable. Whoever thought having sex in a car is comfortable…"

"Men think it. Because they usually make sure _they're_ comfortable."

"Chad thought being in an expensive hotel room would impress me. It didn't. He was just as dull, and quick." Lydia paused, then added, "Ever yawned in the middle of it?"

"I plead the Fifth, dear."

They both giggled like schoolgirls. Beetlejuice's mind boggled so much his eyes crossed, and he had to violently shake his head to set them right.

"You _didn't_ invite Chad to come down while we're gone, did you?" Delia asked.

"God, no. I don't want to ever see him again. I didn't even give him my phone number. Besides, I'm pretty certain my lack of enthusiasm and gratitude made him never want to see _me_ again. He'll probably find some nice, blond, blue-eyed Cabot girl, and marry, and have two-point-five insufferable children."

Delia stood up. "Next time, pick someone who actually gives a damn if you enjoy yourself. 'Kay?"

"Thanks, Delia." Beetlejuice could hear the two women hugging. "Mom."

"Delia!" yelled Charles from the landing. "Time to go!"

"Well, kiss kiss." Beetlejuice heard lips smack the air. "We'll call when we get there, though don't hold your breath, because Arnie's wife is such a chatterbox, and god knows where the hell we'll go for dinner, it'll probably be Italian and loud, knowing them, but there's something in the freezer, and here's money," there was the sound of crisp bills, "in case you want to order out to the pizza place, but god help us don't go to the Dew Drop Inn, we've got to maintain _some_ sort of reputation in this village—"

The car engine gunned in the driveway. The horn honked, twice.

"Your father, subtle as a brick through a window." Another kiss sound, and Delia left.

Beetlejuice slowly pulled himself out from under the bed, on the side opposite where Lydia was sitting. Kneeling, he put his hands on the edge of the mattress.

Hesitantly, perhaps even a little frightened, the young woman looked at him over her shoulder.

"How can anybody know about these things, if nobody ever tells you?" Lydia's voice was uncharacteristically shy. She turned away. She hugged herself, as if she felt alone and afraid. "Maybe a person does something with someone they don't care about, because they really want to do it with someone they _do_ care about, but that person doesn't seem to feel the same way."

Beetlejuice got up on the bed, squatting down on his thighs a few feet behind the young woman.

Lydia's head and voice dropped into her chest. "And you're afraid if you ask the person you care about, that person will laugh at you, and call you a child. Or say no, he doesn't feel the same way, he could never feel that way, and it ruins your friendship."

Beetlejuice swallowed, hard, as he looked at the back of Lydia's bowed head and slumped shoulders.

"Or if he says yes," she whispered, "and you do it for the first time, and you're horrible at it, and…maybe he's more experienced, and he'll be disgusted, or laugh, and that ruins everything, too. Maybe, you want more…but you don't want to lose what you have." Her shoulders began to tremble. "Maybe that's why a person does something stupid."

Lydia turned and looked at Beetlejuice. Tears were running down her face. She looked utterly miserable. "I was stupid. I was so _completely_ stu—"

Beetlejuice grabbed her face in his hands and locked his mouth on hers. He inhaled sharply, then retreated.

Lydia didn't spit and wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. She didn't punch him in the nose, or kick him off the bed. Instead, her glistening eyes widened.

In an instant, Lydia's arms grabbed around Beetlejuice's neck and her mouth was on his. His arms wrapped around her, holding her as close as was physically possible.

She was so incredibly warm. His body seemed to take heat from hers. His fingers gloried in the softness of her thick, black hair. The tip of her tongue nervously played with his lips, and he let her in, and let his own tongue have free reign. Her hands were actually gripping his dry, yellow mass of hair.

They were on their knees on the bed, clenched together. As they devoured at each other, Lydia's hand left the ghost's hair and tentatively moved down his face, feeling his chin, then his neck, then slipped inside his open collar. Her fingers tugged at his tie.

Panting, Beetlejuice gently separated his mouth from hers, and pulled back, his hands holding her hands. Lydia looked confused and fearful.

"Babes," he breathed, "look at me. Okay? I want ya t' take a good, long look." He swallowed and steeled himself. "I'll tell ya one thing…just one…about my death. I was thirty-seven. Right? A middle-aged guy. I'm still thirty-seven. I'm twenty years older than you are."

"You died," breathed Lydia, "how long ago?"

"Aw jeez, do ya really wanna -"

"You kidded once that you'd lived through the Black Plague." Lydia's right hand was holding Beetlejuice's thin black tie, wrapping and unwrapping it around her shaking fingers. "You said you died six hundred years ago. But when I asked you about the Black Plague, you couldn't tell me anything about it. You didn't even know about the American Civil War."

"With ghosts," said Beetlejuice, sheepishly, "there's a kinda one-upmanship. The guys who've been dead a long time, ones who've seen more history, are more impressive."

"Why'd you lie to me?"

"Because…I wanted t' impress ya. It was great, havin' a smart, talented kid think I was cool."

"The word 'kid' is officially not to be ever spoken again." Lydia's fist tightened on his tie. "You are _such_ a moron. You _know_ I love history. Did you think I couldn't tell, from the way you talk, from the way you dress, that you hadn't been dead all that long? That you've only been dead since about the nineteen forties?"

Beetlejuice couldn't help but smile, shakily. "That's what I love about ya, babes. You are so damn smart."

"So that makes you…thirty-seven plus about seventy-eight… a hundred and fifteen years old. Sort of. I'm kissing a hundred and fifteen year old dead guy. That's really twisted." With his tie, she drew his face close. "And don't call me 'babes' anymore. Say, 'baby.'"

"Baby," he breathed.

"I've…got a confession to make." She bit her lower lip.

It was Beetlejuice's turn to look worried. "Anything ya say, it's okay."

"I undressed in front of you…on purpose. I wanted you to see. And I…wanted see to how you'd react."

A grin slid across the ghost's face. "You sneaky minx. I've rubbed off on ya."

"I'd rather," she said as she entwined her arms around his neck, "you rub… _in_ me."

Beetlejuice swallowed, shaking. He stroked his hands up and down her back. "Okay….. I know I'm th' handsomest dead guy around. But this is all about _you_. I can look any way ya want me to, like any famous actor hunk, or rock star, alive or croaked. Or I can be anyone ya think up. I can be made-to-order, just say what ya want."

Lydia pressed a forefinger on his lips to shut him up. "If you change so much as a nose hair, you'll never kiss me again. Got it?"

"Oh, I have so got it." His mouth was on hers in a second, his tongue circling hers. Beetlejuice sank his left hand into her hair, as he fought to remove his tie with his right. Lydia's hands were frantically unbuttoning his striped jacket. The damn knot of the tie refused to loosen. His right hand became scissors, and cut the tie off.

"Your arms," huffed Lydia, trying to pull off his jacket.

"I..yeah, it's…" The jacket was not cooperating. Lydia giggled and kissed Beetlejuice's neck as his arms struggled in the sleeves. "Just a sec…God _dammit_!" He snarled, and the jacket disappeared in a flash of flame.

"Aw," said Lydia, "I loved that jacket."

"It's just down in my Neitherworld closet, no harm done." He grabbed her again, this time his mouth caressing her neck, his tongue stroking, his fingers unbuttoning her shirt and flinging it aside. Lydia bent her head back with a small, breathy sound, while she undid his shirt. He gently nipped at her neck and shoulders. She made a deep, throaty sound and slid her right palm down his stomach and towards his crotch.

"No, no, baby," said Beetlejuice, in heaving breaths, carefully halting her exploring hand. "This is about _you_. Don't worry 'bout me; I'm damn fine. It's all about what _you_ want."

"Okay." The warmth of Lydia's whisper indicated she was sincerely moved. "One of the things I want to do is…is this." Her palm headed for his zipper. "Unless…if _you_ don't want me to, I respect that, I wouldn't…"

"Ooh god, Lyds, you have _no_ idea… Your wish is my command, baby."

To keep from groaning loud enough for all of Peaceful Pines, Connecticut, to hear, Beetlejuice mouthed Lydia's shoulder, his hands finding inside her bra, and carefully, luxuriously, fondling, as her hand unzipped his fly and slid inside.

He heard her giggle. He blinked. His heart sank.

Beetlejuice muttered, "I can make it anyway ya want it—"

"Don't you dare. I'm just happy that…I guessed right."

"What?"

Lydia pulled back. Her heavy-lidded eyes were twinkling. "My not-so-little friend has a name. B.J."

The ghost's eyes bugged. "You mean…"

"I got it thinking of a particular someone. Sometimes when we were sitting, watching TV, the inseam of your trousers was pulled up high enough for me to…guesstimate size. I know you didn't do it on purpose, it's just something that happens sometimes when guys sit down. And I know you didn't know I was sneaking a look. I'm just very happy that my guesstimate was right. And that I've been…practicing…with your namesake." She blinked, blushing. "You're perfect."

"That makes two of us," Beetlejuice breathed, and dove into her again. His eyes rolled back in reaction to her hand. "Oh _god_ , baby, oh..." Her hand closed, tightly. Beetlejuice's eyes popped. "Lyds! Nails, NAILS."

She let go. "I'm sorry! I'm so clumsy—"

"No, no problem, I love yer enthusiasm!"

Kissing, panting, the young woman and the ghost moved towards the headboard. Beetlejuice, eyes closed, mouth working, one arm around Lydia's back and picking at her bra closure, yanked off first his right boot, then his left. He threw it across the room, and it bounced off the armchair. Lydia was panting as his teeth grabbed the front of her black lace bra and pulled it off, then moved to what had filled it. Lydia wrapped her arms around his head, shuddering as his lips played, as the ghost pulled off his trousers and briefs. He reached blindly behind and grabbed the two large pillows, stuffing them upright against the headboard, one in front of the other.

"C'mere…" Wearing only his open magenta shirt, Beetlejuice leaned back against the pillows, his legs apart. Carefully, he turned Lydia and maneuvered her between his legs, so that she was leaning her back against his body, her head beside his.

Slowly, savoring every inch, Beetlejuice opened her zipper. Lydia raised her hips, and his shaking hands slipped her jeans, and her panties, down to her thighs. She lowered them to her ankles, then tugged them off, throwing them to land on top of Beetlejuice's boots.

Caressing her hair, he had her lean back on him. He whispered in her ear, "Show me what ya like. Teach me what ya like."

With her right hand, she guided his. She placed his thumb and forefinger. She carefully demonstrated the movement. He followed, damp with sweat. Her head fell backward, her cheek against his chin, her eyes closed.

"Am I doin' it right?"

Pressing her cheek against his face, eyes shut, she nodded vehemently. Her mouth fell open. Her breathing became more rapid. She started to reach behind her, for what was pressing urgently against her.

"No baby, don't worry about me, I'm good, I'm soooo fine." Beetlejuice was, in fact, on the verge. Watching this young woman, his Lydia, pink with pleasure, stretched over him, would set him off immediately if her fingertips so much as brushed against him.

Lydia's hand indicated that he should increase the pace. She grabbed his left hand, and placed it a little further below his right. His fingers knew what to do, and Lydia's wordless gasping indicated he was right.

Beetlejuice mouthed her neck, trying to concentrate so he wouldn't explode. His striped tongue snaked down her, tickling, stroking, all over her breasts. Lydia's back arched; her breath became jerky, catching. Her fingers gripped his thighs, then moved up and dug into his hair.

"Beetlejuice…" she moaned, her hips moving faster.

"mmmm," he groaned, his tongue retracting, his own hips moving.

"Oh god…Beetlejuice…"

"Yeeaah, baby, my beautiful baby…"

"Beetle—"

"Waitaminnit. Lyds! Don't say—"

"-juice."

A crack of lightning and clash of thunder.

He appeared on the floor of the Roadhouse's Common Room, wearing only his open shirt.

"AAAAA!" Ginger shrieked.

"Sacre bleu!" screamed Jacques. "And moi with no eyelids!" He covered his eyes with his finger bones, but could still see, so he covered his face with his beret.

" _ **Lyds**_!" Beetlejuice yelled, trying to cover his crotch with his shirttail, and crossing his legs. "Call me back! CALL ME BACK!"

 **The End…for Now.**


End file.
